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We have already talked about Energy Audits. But nowadays, an another form of audit is developing : The Virtual Energy Audits. Below, Hugh Gaasch and Chris Muth explain to us what are the differences between this two forms of Energy Audits.

Hugh Gaasch and Chris Muth: May 15, 2013

There’s been an interesting discussion recently about data analytics and software solutions that aim to improve the building energy-efficiency evaluation process. At the heart of this debate is what can be learned about a building without ever going on-site versus what can be gleaned from a traditional energy audit.

An energy audit is an inspection, survey and analysis of energy flows for energy conservation in a building, process or system to reduce the amount of energy. In commercial and industrial real estate, an energy audit is the first step in identifying opportunities to reduce energy expense and carbon footprints. More and more companies begin to make audits as specialized Deepki, a start-up specialized in the data analysis.

Here is a short video of Michael Thomas, sharing what is underlying an energy audit. What a world-record short-time video clip. 🙂

As Rachel England said “there’s an app for everything nowadays, and energy-saving is no exception”. Smart-phones offer a million times the opportunity to save energy and to make your day-to-day behaviour smarter and more environmental friendly.

Here are some of the most interesting apps we have already met. Feel free to share yours here above in the comment section.

It allows to develop a policy for a better efficient use of energy, to set targets and goals for implementing the policy, while relying on data to better understand the energy use and consumption . It is however necessary in addition to the energy audit of implementing the management process of clean energy to ISO, which measures the results to examine the efficiency and then provide continuous improvement of management energy.

The Baden-Württemberg Foundation, which intends to pave the way for cutting-edge research, a variety of training activities and the responsible use of their citizens launched an expedition truck to raise awareness about Smart-Grids through a game. The truck, called “Expedition N”-truck, will be on a year-long tour.

Visitors in the truck can play a multi-player game. Their mission is to reenact the functionality of an intelligent power grid (“Smart Grid”) as a consistent group. They become a kind of “human smart grid” and learn how the energy turn can be achieved by means of intelligent networking of power producers and power consumers.

We’ve already seen in a previous post why Energy Efficiency business developers should look at the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution and the benefits this technology’s wave will provide to them. Now, let’s delve into 2 ideas, which should help you build the next smash hits in Energy Efficiency.

Insulation plays an essential role in both comfort and energy savings. In order to get the most for your [Client’s] money, it is important to make sure that the [building] has the right amount of insulation. This infographic will give you a better idea of insulation [principle].

Enjoy this educational infographic. It should give you ideas to make similar infographics and use them to promote your solutions.

WellHome

This infographic is very well-made. However can we conclude that insulation is systematically a must-to? What should be the best tradeoff between different Energy Conservation Measures such as insulation or active systems efficiency improvements or behavioural demand response? We’ll see in a forthcoming post how grey energy can help local authorities and firms make the best long-term choice.

We are in 2018 and some of the biggest electrical equipments and Building Management Systems firms had burst, leaving the room to very young blooming startups, for some of them created less than 5 year ago. Would you want to work for one of these unfortunate big formerly top-in-the-class firms? You want to turn around and not stay on the side of the road?

Delve into the Non Intrusive Appliances Load Monitoring area. As seen in a previous post, NIALM technologies are processes for desegregating power and deducing what appliances are used in a building through a single metering point. Look at these up-and-coming startups. We should talk a lot about them very soon:

As Patrick Gray said: “The Internet of Things (IoT) appears to be moving from futurist speculation to reality.” Here’s a look at what business value it may hold at Energy Efficiency industry: the 5 main reasons why Energy Efficiency business developers should look at IoT revolution.

Every things can talk.“The “thing” […] is any item that can contain an embedded, connected computing device.” For energy consuming devices, a “thing” in the IoT could be a self-powered no-battery no-wire connected meter or a light bulb that sends luminosity data to a server somewhere on the Internet.

What if it was possible to get the power consumption breakdown by electricity usage of a building, based on a single sensor? What if all submetering systems became obsolete because of one signal processing technology? Today, this comes true thanks to NIALM (Non Intrusive Appliances Load Monitoring) technologies.

NIALM technologies are processes for desagregating power and deducing what appliances are used in a building through a single metering point.

Getting through blogs, forums and other experts’ chats, you’d notice that Building Management System manufacturers, IPMVP experts, Energy Auditors, and more generally most of Energy Efficiency Project Managers keep saying “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” If I do believe and know that information is key to successfully implement Energy Efficiency measures, I simultaneously think that measurement can be necessary but it’s never sufficient.

In a previous post, we saw that it was easy to reduce street lighting energy consumption for almost zero investment. Today, we are going to visit 7 other efficient actions with very good payback time every cities should implement to reduce their electricity consumption.

Redeploy street lighting points: In order to avoid the excessive number of lightings by acting on the spacing and the number of lighting points, these can be redeployed according to their buildings’ architecture and to our street maintenance services. The height of the lampposts can also be optimised to ensure an optimum response to the need for functionality, safety and attractiveness of our territories.

Everybody talk about Smart Meters. But practically speaking, what the hell is that? We all see what a meter is. It’s a stuff that measures something, in particular electricity, but not only. However, what’s the difference between Smart Energy and a Smart meter? What makes a meter “smart”? What are the benefits for customers? Why are the traditional meters being replaced with smart meters?

A smart meter is a digital electric meter often equipped with wireless communications technology. This allows Consumers Energy to communicate with smart meters remotely so that certain service requests can be completed faster, such as meter reading, service connections and outage notifications.

Regarding public lighting, the European norm EN 13201, not yet mandatory, sets up the illumination levels that need to be maintained in the different categories of public areas, essentially according to the level of safety. While respecting this regulation, conceivable (almost) free actions can be set up to optimize costs: change or modernize lampposts, regularly maintain the lighting lot, choose a rational use of public lighting, etc. Essential actions, detailed below, can help transforming our existing public lighting systems into effective public lighting systems.

Population in European cities increases more and more and so the dependence to infrastructures to travel. In a context of urban sprawl confronted to the double effect of fuel prices increase and new working hours, the treatment of mobility constitutes a fundamental component of our territories attractiveness, as seen in a previous post. Energy Efficiency in public transport is a key leverage to improve attractivity.

The question of mobility is also asked in environmental terms; public transit networks are tremendous tools to reduce CO2 emissions and local pollutions. The fight against global warming will be determining for the evolution of transport.

We used to say that while asking a question to experts, you would receive as many answers as experts you ask your question to. No reason to be different in Energy Efficiency. Thus, Energy Efficiency engineers would legitimately give different answers depending on their own expertise (metering, automation, thermal, electricity and so on) and on the firm/product line they belong to.

My personal answer based on field experience is the following: You should start your Energy Efficiency project certainly not with an offer! Neither an audit, nor a metering systems’ installation. You should start it with questions and a genuine ability to listen to your client’s answers. Finally, this is basically a regular sales approach sometimes some engineers tend to negligate a little bit too much.

A common thought within the Energy sector is that the vast majority of end-customers (B2B, B2C and B2B2C) doesn’t know how much they consume and spend on energy. Surprising? not really. Energy prices used to be quite low historically and, except for energy-intensive companies, they turn to be far from being the first budget item.

However, it clearly gives a clue on how far energy management based decisions are from commonplace. Yet, energy awareness is a key item to understand the initial opportunity, design a project, and verify whether you’re actually saving energy. Let’s how a drop of good information can help raise some determinant Energy Efficiency barriers.

Everybody talk about Smart Grids. But practically speaking, what the hell is that? We all understand how electricity comes to our house (through a grid). However, what makes a smart grid different from today’s grid? What are the benefits of smart grid technology? Is it really necessary?

Smart Grid – or digital grid – uses the same digital technology used in industries such as telecommunications to enable two-way communications between Utilities, DSO/TSO and end customers. Think of it as an energy network that delivers improved reliability and virtually unlimited opportunities for customers to take control of their energy usage and costs.

Speaking about Energy Efficiency with everybody, you may have noticed that almost everyone has her own definition of the topic. For some of us, Renewable Energies (REn) are part of Energy Efficiency such as solar panels or green district heating. For others, only actions on active systems or building’s envelops are eligible to this so-called appellation.

What’s the truth amongst all these potential definitions? Is there really a unique definition? Does it make sense to think in terms of an overall spectrum? What if there were several relevant definitions of Energy Efficiency, each one suitable for a given context?